NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) – Eddie Driggers had been out of active policing for five years when North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey offered him the top job in South Carolina’s third-largest city.
Driggers, working as a chaplain for a group that helps police departments, had to pray and talk to his wife before taking the job. Summey’s top task was to repair relationships with the black community that had been strained for years by North Charleston’s aggressive crackdown on crime through traffic stops that African-Americans viewed as harassment.
After one of his white officers was charged with murder in the shooting of an unarmed black man running from a traffic stop, Driggers is trying to mend an even bigger rift, all under the glare of a spotlight.
“I have been praying for peace,” Driggers said Wednesday at a news conference frequently interrupted by angry protesters. “Peace for the family, peace for the community. And I will continue to stand on that as I strive to protect and serve the people I took an oath to help.”
Driggers hasn’t talked much publicly since. The mayor said after a church service Sunday that Driggers has worked to improve police-community relations in the past two years and that recruiting minority officers is among the department’s top priorities.